Institutional and personal characteristics that influence teachers' levels of job satisfaction in public secondary schools in Tetu District, Kenya

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The purpose of this study was to investigate institutional and personal characteristics that influence the level of job satisfaction among teachers in public secondary schools in Tetu district. The study sought to a) to establish the extent to which salaries influence job satisfaction among secondary school teachers in Tetu district, b) to determine the extent to which supervision influences job satisfaction among secondary school teachers in Tetu district, c) to ascertain the level of recognition among secondary school teachers in Tetu district and how it influences their job satisfaction, d) to determine the influence of age on job satisfaction among secondary school teachers in Tetu district and e) to establish the influence of gender on job satisfaction among secondary school teachers in Tetu district.
this study used a survey design consisting of 29 headteachers and 406 teachers out of whom 15 headteachers and 86 teachers sample was arrived at using stratified sampling method. The study used questionnaires for head teachers and teachers as the tools for data collection. Data was collected using drop and pick method. Data was coded using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 13.0. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data after which findings were presented in tables. Qualitative data was analyzed through content analysis.
Findings on teachers' salary showed that 46.05% and 29.95% of the teachers were dissatisfied and highly dissatisfied with their salaries in Tetu district respectively. This is in relation to their efforts, workload, academic qualifications and when compared to people in other professions. They also indicated that majority of the teachers had support from their schools and school administration; they were satisfied with the disciplinary measures taken when wrongs are done and their relationship with their school head and deputy school head was also satisfactory.
Findings on recognition and its effect on teachers' job satisfaction showed that 5.26% were highly satisfied and 44.74% were satisfied with the quality and frequency of recognition of their efforts. However, regarding the variety of methods used to recognize teachers' efforts, 35.53% were dissatisfied and 14.47% were highly dissatisfied. The findings on age showed that senior teachers (34 years and above) were more satisfied with their work responsibilities and extra curricular activities than the younger teachers. Findings on gender on the other hand showed that there was very little difference in satisfaction with assignment of responsibilities and disciplinary measures taken for both genders. However, there were more women, 19 (25%) than men, 12 (15.79%) who are dissatisfied with promotion issues.
Based on the findings, the researcher recommends that school heads and the school administration should use various methods of recognizing teachers' effort. They can hold a forum where the teachers can speak out on the ways of recognition that they would feel contented with and the school administration can adopt the most effective methods. This would boost teachers' job satisfaction. Finally, there were contradictions on the effects of age on teachers' job satisfaction. The findings showed that senior teachers (35.5%) were more satisfied with their work than younger teachers (27.6%). There were no elements to show that younger teachers were more satisfied with their jobs. This means that the researcher did not manage to reconcile past contradicting studies on the effect of age on teachers' job satisfaction. The researcher therefore suggested that there should be an in-depth study to investigate the effect of age on teachers' job satisfaction.'